This is the same hyperpartisan Senator who was at the forefront of the effort to deny habeas rights to Guantanamo inmates; he was also involved in the Bush wiretapping scandal.
Expect to see lots of superficial genuflection from Republicans towards the Swartz case; the GOP is in a constant low-grade conflict with the Democratic DoJ.
Here, let me put it this way: what do you honestly think Aaron Swartz would think about this clown using his name to score political points?
Cornyn has for many years been a leader on open access to science. Together with Joe Lieberman he introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) into Congress in 2006. This Act would, if passed, make almost all scientific publications funded by the US Govt openly accessible within 6 months of publication:
The act has not yet passed. It was re-proposed in 2010 and 2012, each time with increased support from a bi-partisan group of sponsors, in both Houses. Cornyn is still a sponsor.
My understanding is that Cornyn was instrumental in the passage of the 2008 NIH public access policy, which makes NIH-funded research available within 6 months of publication:
Sen. Cornyn is also the former Attorney General for Texas and a former judge. He's a serious guy on these issues and one of the top thinkers on judiciary issues for the GOP.
Speaking as a Texan, I do not recall seeing any evidence that, in his former role as Attorney General for Texas, he was serious about reigning in prosecutorial abuse. He didn't really make any effort to reduce the prosecutorial overreach and over-imprisonment perpetrated by his own office when he had that opportunity, and he hasn't made any effort at reform in the Senate, either. If anything, his main efforts over the years have been in the opposite direction: to imprison more people, for longer sentences, with fewer procedural safeguards and less court oversight.
I blame the "tough on crime" prosecutors and politicians (and the people who vote for them) for a large part of our current mess.
You weren't paying attention. Cornyn was a judicial system reformer in Texas as both a judge and as AG. Open government and fighting good ol' boy corruption were his beat.
By judicial system reform, I mean reducing the US's fetish for throwing too many people in jail for too-long sentences, which is what's relevant to the present case. I don't see any evidence that Cornyn did anything to reduce Texas prison populations or direct his office to stop intimidating defendants into accepting plea-bargains, or to stop seeking excessive sentences.
You guys are forgetting the most notable thing about John Cornyn: this unbelievable (real) ad that he ran for his campaign a couple years back. I give you... Big Bad John: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcB7uCqdFk
Well I learned something from this discussion. Advocacy for Open Access is a new side project of mine, and now I know that Cornyn will be a strong ally.
It's well worth looking at the list of sponsors at the FRPAA Wikipedia link. Heck, I'll cut and paste -- it's a long list, but these people deserve recognition:
Senators John Cornyn and Joe Lieberman
In the House, Representatives Michael Doyle, Frederick Boucher, Michael Capuano, Jerry Costello, Bill Foster, Barney Frank, Gregg Harper, Paul Hodes, Tim Holden, Dennis Kucinich, Rick Larsen, Zoe Lofgren, Stephen Lynch, Dana Rohrabacher, Fortney Stark, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Henry Waxman
I only follow the politics of open access loosely, but my impression is that Lieberman has been a strong supporter since well before it was fashionable - well back into the 1990s.
I disagree with many of these people on many things, but I think this work is admirable, and worth supporting.
Edit: I notice that Senator Ron Wyden is missing from Wikipedia's list. Not sure what's up with that. He was definitely involved.
Suber is one of the world's leading advocates for open access to science.
For even more complete coverage, you can follow Suber's Open Access Tracking project. The project can be followed in several ways, including on Twitter:
John Cornyn and science get along great, as long as the science doesn't involve stem cell research (which he has casted Senate votes to ban) or climate change.
Where Cornyn stands on other issues is hardly relevant to the point at hand: Cornyn has a long-standing, deep-abiding interest in open access, an interest which is admirable, and certainly explains why he might have a genuine interest in the prosecution of Aaron Swartz.
A discussion, let alone a democracy, cannot function if one requires everyone to agree with them on every sub-point of every item related to the topic of question.
I agree completely. I'm not suggesting that people can't applaud overtures towards open science or open access or an accountable DOJ. I'd just hope to maybe shape and direct the applause, so we're clear what its real target is.
I like Richard Posner, for instance, but I'm disquieted by how quickly the Reddit/HN crowd decided to lionize him once he came to a conclusion they liked regarding patents. Posner for SCOTUS! from people who understand the abstract from one case he worked on. Sheesh!
> This is the same hyperpartisan Senator who was at the forefront of the effort to deny habeas rights to Guantanamo inmates; he was also involved in the Bush wiretapping scandal.
This is poisoning the well. There are some good questions in the posted letter. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to get good answers. Whatever their political stripes or past failings, at least someone is willing to press the issue instead of dropping it.
Of the asked questions, the ones with veiled accusations of retaliation demand an especially compelling answer. The DoJ should definitely be on the spot for their prior entanglements with Schwartz. Their conduct in this case could easily be construed as retaliatory (we couldn't get you then, so we'll slam you now).
The only question that seems silly to me is the last one. Of course a DoJ prosecutor is aware of the concept of prosecutorial discretion. To be fair, it's also a good counterpoint to the current silly "Congress made us be mean" line the prosecution is taking. It's just more of a statement than a question.
> Expect to see lots of superficial genuflection from Republicans towards the Swartz case; the GOP is in a constant low-grade conflict with the Democratic DoJ.
One of the nice things about an adversarial system is that you can benefit from the conduct of parties whose views don't align with your own.
I'm not saying we should act ignorant of the Senator's motivations here. We just shouldn't dismiss his concerns outright because of them.
But you've completely derailed this post. I think you could have raised awareness about this man while also keeping the discussion on the positive aspect of these questions being asked at all.
This is what happens when defending or attacking people based on allegiance to political parties. All rational arguments in place get lost in favor of ad hominem platitudes.
Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps. (Feb 2011)
Voted NO on requiring FISA court warrant to monitor US-to-foreign calls. (Feb 2008)
Voted YES on removing need for FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad. (Aug 2007)
Voted NO on implementing the 9/11 Commission report. (Mar 2007)
Voted NO on preserving habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees. (Sep 2006)
Voted NO on requiring CIA reports on detainees & interrogation methods. (Sep 2006)
Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. (Mar 2006)
Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's wiretap provision. (Dec 2005)
Congress is THE body which has say in the matter. Obama's attempts to move suspects to the continental US from Guantanamo were suppressed by Congress. If you are going to excuse Congress, then who are you going to hold responsible?
Obama has the power of veto and executive order, does he not?
Every power grubbing slimeball in D.C. is responsible. My only point was that just because Senator X doesn't share your values, don't think opposing him or her is going to make much difference right now.
> This is poisoning the well. There are some good questions in the posted letter. Whatever their political stripes or past failings, at least someone is willing to press the issue instead of dropping it.
Note that if the questioner is generally viewed as someone who would ask such questions merely as an attack strategy (something which is depressingly common in the GOP these days), that's going to make it easier for the administration to avoid giving a meaningful answer; his reputation gives them some cover.
For the same reason, somebody who's viewed as a friend of the administration asking the same questions would be much more painful.
So for better or for worse, it does matter somewhat who's doing the asking...
> The only question that seems silly to me is the last one. Of course a DoJ prosecutor is aware of the concept of prosecutorial discretion. To be fair, it's also a good counterpoint to the current silly "Congress made us be mean" line the prosecution is taking. It's just more of a statement than a question.
Keep in mind, the question is coming from a Senator on the Judiciary Committee. It could be a preemptive objection to having the blame sent back at him, perhaps also a threat to alter the law to reduce the "discretion to charge defendents".
You're right that is is more of a statement than a question. Political letters like this are often calculated more to produce effects than answers.
One approach is to reflexively attack Republicans even when they are on the same side. Another is to consider this a rare moment of bipartisan comity; if Republicans see the light on open access, copyright reform and prosecutorial abuse on this, fantastic. There are times when Obama and the DOJ are wrong and the Republicans and Democrats in Congress are right. This is one of those times. After all, the US allied with Stalin to beat Hitler, sometimes you do what you gotta do.
Re: what Swartz would think, he wasn't exactly a fan of Obama's DOJ or drone strikes either.
Yes, this is most definitely a proxy in the ongoing political battle between the Senate Republicans and the DoJ. It's a little surprising that he would side with Aaron just to take a potshot at the U.S. attorney's office.
It's also worth pointing out that Texas (at least until recently) had some of the best open-records laws in the country. Cornyn argued that the Feds should emulate Texas in this regard -- during the Bush administration: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2005/03/cornyn-foia-sh...
If he was advocate for more open access to government records, why is it surprising that he would be concerned about the Aaron Swartz case? I agree that this letter could be seen as part a larger battle between Republicans and the Obama DoJ, but does that mean that questions about Aaron Swartz' prosecution are only valid if they come from Democrats?
This is silly and disingenuous partisanship. It isn't at all a "anti-republicans" thing in his comment. It is a "hey this guy may be doing this good thing, but don't go about declaring him 'a good guy strictly on our side' (for whatever side that happens to be), he's done these other things that a lot of people are against". Its a sanity check.
Let's repost tptacek's comments, to see how partisan they are:
>"Expect to see lots of superficial genuflection from Republicans towards the Swartz case; the GOP is in a constant low-grade conflict with the Democratic DoJ."
Any show of support of the GOP for Aaron Swartz is "superficial genuflection" driven by partisan conflict. Doubtless, Democratic support would be considered genuine.
>"Here, let me put it this way: what do you honestly think Aaron Swartz would think about this clown using his name to score political points?"
A Senator with a history of support for Open Access is a "clown" that is so odious that Aaron would be upset to have his support.
This is partisanship at its worst. tptacek is dehumanizing Republicans in a way that kills rational thought. A Republican can't even do something tptacek agrees with without receiving his scorn.
What's reasonable to me is: not putting any politician on a pedestal. They all suck for a lot of reasons.
Unfortunately, you see it on web forums all the time that people have no medium or long term memories: basically they see some politician agreeing with them on some topic and there is much raving about how awesome that person is. Two weeks later, the same politician is against the prevalent view on some other topic, and they are the devil incarnate.
Further there is a trend in these discussions to turn everything into "this guy is from this party, so that party is on my side!" craziness, and piles of confirmation bias start happening.
So I see comments on how various parties will spin any event and posture themselves towards it, with references to a larger political climate - such as the one you quoted first - not as "anti-$PARTY" or "hate", but as a reminder that the politicians are always playing, a "here is the game now" statement.
Similarly, regarding your second quote, calling a politician a clown, is not anti republican anything. The senator has a history of open access, but also has a questionable history in larger civil liberties contexts. The senator posturing himself as a champion of Aaron Swartz because of the open access issue, is just that. We've seen a lot of stuff lately reminding us of Aaron's stance on, e.g. Chomsky and the concept of manufactured consent. This politician is in fact doing what Aaron didn't like in the manufactured consent game. It is a reasonable statement to point it out.
Note: when the framing of this as "Obama's DOJ" and other types of strong political gaming that will occur around this, no one will mention Ortiz has been a US Attorney since 1997, and therefore doing this sort of action for many administrations. It will turn into a discussion of which party is responsible, rather than a reasonable discussion about what should be done about an actual problem.
In this context, it is reasonable for anyone who wants to address the problem, rather than the politics, to take steps in discussions like this to remind everyone that the person in question may in fact agree with them on this issue, but they, and the party they represent certainly don't agree on every issue. This is a giant problem - the thinking that any party agrees whole-heartedly with your stances, or that any given politician has the right answers to all problems.
Finally it should be noted that tptacek gets accused of hating just about every single group that exists at some point. It seems he is in that rare place of "he thinks for himself", and so gets these sorts of "super partisan" accusations about hating the democrats a lot too. Isn't it great when your knee jerk defense of your chosen favorites causes you to attack someone who regularly gets attacked for being too much on your side?
I'm an issues guy, not a party guy. When a politician does something good, I like that. Even if I don't normally agree with them, that means I have the opportunity to build a larger, more effective coalition towards my goal.
For you and tptacek, when a politician does something good, that's a bad thing because they are trying to dupe us. I'm not a Chomskyite, so I can't twist my brain in those kind of knots.
I never said I was a Chomskyite. Nor did I say it was a bad thing. You are being disingenuous. I was merely supporting the idea of being an issues person, not lionizing any politician on a single stance of theirs. But whatever, you would rather see me and apparently tptacek (although we are not on the same side about a lot of things either, I've gone toe-to-toe with him on this forum before), as enemies rather than people who support an issue you also support. It's actually funny how hypocritical your statement is - you say you're an issues guy, but then demonize people who are saying "yeah support this politician on this issue, but be careful of their stance on other issues, and notice their general behavior in case they do the politician thing and subtly change what they say".
Basically, I have no idea how you can claim to be an issues guy, but attack people for being partisan when they warn people to be cognizant of all issues when supporting a single politician. To build a coalition you need to be careful that side effects of the "pro my issue" people aren't "against my other issues".
Your post is very rude. I don't always agree with 'tptacek or anyone else, even some of my own past comments. However, I have seen enough of his comments to know I'd be happy to have a beer with the man. If Thomas is a nutjob in your mind and sparrows are crazy, I can't begin to imagine how you might describe some of my perspectives.
It would be lovely if HN could be a place where people could express themselves civilly and not be attacked.
It would be lovely if HN could be a place where people could rise above their petty self interests and help the community move forward. Thomas is at the wrong end of this spectrum.
TheAmazingIdiot is correct BTW. Its hard to imagine Thomas posting his ridiculous views unless he is a paid shill. Probably on your team.
His point is that the Obama administration actually did revamp the federal FOIA policy and got no credit for it, I think. But that's kind of by-the-by.
That wasn't my point...and while Obama has opened some new doors, the thinking in the journalism community is that his administration is actually more closed when it comes to raw request numbers:
This is of course a quantitative measure...but given that Obama wrote a very direct order to officials to err on the side of openness, it's striking that that order is being ignored so casually...I don't think it's hard to make a case that the culture of the bureaucracy is not particularly mindful of openness.
Yeah, I was just meandering. The parent post had argued that this was little more than a hypocritical political ploy. I was saying, 'probably', because there's not much to politically gain from it other than to give the DOJ a black eye and because, I guess I just see Swartz as still being a "niche" issue to most people outside of the tech/academic senator.
But I thought it was fair to point out that Cornyn is no fairweather public-records fan. But of course, Swartz's JSTOR incident was not just a case of open-access (as it was in the PACER case). There's enough nuance here that I would've just assumed that a senator of Conryn's level would leave it be as there are many other political shitstorms going on (gun control, debt ceiling, etc etc)
I am loath to politicize this any further, but since you're highlighting the context, I feel compelled to note it is the Democratic DoJ who is staffed at the highest levels with former IP-industry trade representatives. It is the Democratic executive branch that made these appointments and has made IP enforcement a top priority for said Democratic DoJ, including the Joint DoJ Task Force[1], IPEC [2], and across the Government generally [3]
Also, worth pointing out is how SOPA didn't really "die" until Paul Ryan and congressional Republicans abandoned it en masse. (and surprisingly, neither he nor they made scant, if any use of this fact for political purposes during the election)
As a self-identified center-left progressive, you can imagine this creates some strong cognitive dissonance for me, but the pragmatist in me can accept the strange bedfellows and opportunism for what it is. Superficial or not, is Mr. Cornyn acting in your interests or against them?
This is the same hyperpartisan Senator who was at the forefront of the effort to deny habeas rights to Guantanamo inmates.
The Entitled Party had complete control of the House and a 60 senator supermajority in the Senate for the first year of Obama's presidency, not to mention near complete control of the "news" media, Hollywood, television, the arts, the unions, etc, etc. If they wanted to introduce habeas rights for prisoners of war for the first time in US (or most any other country's) history, Obama et al could have done it anytime they wanted. State-run news media would have dutifully reported the wonderfulness of it all. Television programs and Hollywood movies would have exclaimed over the Nobel Peace Prize winner's greatness in their plot dialogue. They didn't do any of it.
Remember, it's Cornyn that's being "hyperpartisan", not you.
I can't tell if this is a markov generator trolling me or not. All I can tell you is: I'm glad the questions are being asked, but don't go assuming John Cornyn is a friend to hackers.
Maybe, but I hope you can appreciate why you're getting the ad hominem accusations from your words in the original post.
Can't we appreciate when justice is done or good questions are asked no matter who is asking them?
Personally, I know the national media is going to navel gaze on any opportunity to put any hard questions to this administration. We might as well support the opposition party for at least serving some purpose.
Who defines what a hacker is? The definition certainly does not include fealty to state power, let alone respect for Obama or any political party. You seem to believe that HN is a Democrat Party auxiliary.
What does requiring (as miked points out, essentially unprecedented) habeas rights for prisoners of war have to do with being a "friend to hackers"?
You should probably respond to his point that if Cornyn's position were so radical, surely President Obama would have acted in opposition. Otherwise, you can call the position deeply immoral, but surely it's bipartisan by now.
There aren't very many politicians in DC that aren't hyper partisan. A funny thing to hit someone with given the current environment.
A Senator involved in a wiretapping scandal?
You mean the one where the government has been illegally reading every email for a decade? Or the one where the Obama Administration has done everything in its power to evade constitutional protections on privacy? Or the one where the government is illegally storing as much private communication data as they can?
You're going to have to indict nearly every politician in DC, including the President, if that's your standard. And I think that you should (indict them all), but it's ridiculous to use that as some kind of example of terrible behavior: it's the sad status quo in Washington, where privacy violations are now 'legal' and illegal torture is now legal 'enhanced interrogation' etc etc etc etc.
The Swartz case aside, nobody likes the DOJ. Liberals don't like them because they're tasked with defending laws like DOMA (until recently), drug laws, etc, and people like John Yoo, etc, that are unpopular with their contingent. Conservatives don't like them because they are tasked with defending laws like the Sherman Act, etc, that are unpopular with their contingent. But each side likes the laws that are unpopular with the other side, so they also rag on the DOJ for not doing enough to enforce those laws.
This is very true and your next comment is also excellent as well (re: weed vs. drug traffickers, or antitrust vs. mergers). People want the DOJ's force to be used in causes they approve of and not in causes they don't approve of. Another option, of course, is to agree that there are some things that might be worthy of a penalty like shame rather than a legal penalty, and demilitarize more of human behavior.
That is: a better alternative is to convince people you disagree with, even lead boycotts if you must, but don't use your time in power to increase the power of the government ...because soon that power will be used on you.
There are some pretty serious oversimplifications there. I can "like" an office or department even if its current inhabitant is doing something I don't like. For obvious reasons, this is doubly true when we're talking about an office inhabited by political appointees.
Oh sure, people like the DOJ conceptually. But nobody ever likes the actual DOJ that exists at any given time.
To a liberal, the DOJ is in the abstract the agency that enforces anti-trust laws or the like against big companies. But the actual DOJ is the one going after people growing weed. To a conservative, the DOJ in the abstract is the agency that goes after drug traffickers. But the actual DOJ is the one meddling in mergers.
It seems like you're just assuming that everyone has a very simple, AM radio view of their government.
Things like disliking the political appointees of an institution rather than the institution itself, or disliking parts of an institution rather than the whole, are not difficult distinctions to make. Similarly, I can judge the work output of any institution and my opinion is not likely to be 100% positive or 100% negative.
The other commenter on this thread is right - this is classic poisoning the well.
When a politician does something right - and Cornyn's letter asks far more pointed and on-point questions than I expected - the correct response is not to bring up everything you feel the politician has ever done wrong.
My views, your views, and Cornyn's views about gay marriage aren't particularly relevant here.
Geesh, and all anyone else here is saying that his political beliefs on anything else aren't relevant to anyone who is genuinely interested in helping the cause that Aaron fought for. Cornyn, for whatever his agenda might be, is trying to help. And that isn't good enough for you because he's a Republican. And that is just pathetic partisanship.
You're blasting Corynyn because you don't agree with his politics. Fine. But that has absolutely nothing to do with anything here.
Seriously? You feel that his thinly veiled threats of violence to federal judges makes him a credit to your state? You think it's representative of the popular opinion in Texas to suggest that "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead"? Pretty low standards, eh?
Are you bringing up something from 2005 to kick dirt over the rightness of Senator Cornyn's current actions? Whatever could be the point of this, besides counter-productive partisanship? Can a right action be taken only by people with pasts you deem fully worthy?
I don't believe anybody is disputing that what Cornyn is doing now is good. Nobody is saying, "These questions are bad because Cornyn did bad things before." They're disputing that he is, as a whole, somebody you'd want to give your unreserved support for just because he did this one good thing.
I'm as partisan liberal-democrat as anyone, just read my posts. But what's the negative outcome here? Nerds start supporting a conservative texas senator? It's not like this is the issue that hinges on Cornyn winning or losing to a Democrat in 2014 - his seat has been republican all the way back to 1961 at least.
I could be a lot more hateful about John Cornyn, who is repugnant to me and an all-around force for evil. For now, I'll just stick to the bare facts.
If Dick Cheney wrote this letter, a big chunk of HN would have no trouble identifying the problem. But very few HN'ers pay enough attention to national politics to understand that John Cornyn is one of the Senate's answers to Dick Cheney.
You're giving "your side" a bad name. You're heading into self-parody.
Mitt Romney and his sons once rescued a family from drowning when the family's boat sunk on a lake. I imagine you could find some ulterior evil motive in that.
Cite your sources, please. I'd be interested in reading a legitimate claim to this as a link to a credible source rather than taking the top post for face value on a delicate subject.
No, I'd say that's a fair request. This Senator is asking some important questions in a very succinct way that could bring reform, and tptacek is publicly trying to discredit and undermine him.
I think chc's point is that it takes less time to google "Cornyn Guantanamo" and "Cornyn wiretapping" than it does to post the question here, and will produce a better answer to boot.
And I think ddrt's point is that even if one does google as you're saying, they may not end up with the same information that had the person arrive at the conclusion.
In this case its valid. Yes we can google it, everyone here knows how to do that. The bigger problem is knowing from where people got their information.
Hey, if you Googled it and somehow ended up with the impression that Cornyn might have supported granting Habeas Corpus rights and opposed the Bush Administration's wiretapping, that would definitely be worth a post raising the issue. But that wouldn't happen, because this isn't a fuzzy or subjective matter.
A Senator's stances on issues like these are simple, objective, easily falsifiable facts. This is one or two steps away from demanding a citation for "Barack Obama is a Democrat." Like, if you can't easily figure out for yourself whether it's true or false, the only possible reason is that you didn't care enough to try.
If we're going to play that game, let's play it all the way.
Ortiz has been talked about as a candidate for senator. With Kerry moving to Sec of State, there's a senate seat in Mass. opening up. Scott Brown just lost the seat for the Republicans and will probably be running for the new opening to gain it back. By taking on Ortiz, Cornyn is removing a potentially strong competitor to Brown.
But really, who cares what games are going on in the background?
Ortiz shouldn't have a career in politics, and it's not going to be people in her own party that stop her.
Huh? Ortiz isn't a contender for MA-Senate. That seat is going to Ed Markey.
I am 100% with you on the need to stay on top of Ortiz and limit her career. I have the same problem in my home state with Anita Alvarez, who is also being groomed for bigger things.
I have no problem with the questions Cornyn is asking. Let's just keep him from being adopted as an Internet Superhero. He's not one of those.
But if a Democrat were to have written the same letter, that would have been ok with you? Then he wouldn't have been "a clown"?
Here we have a Senator who is at least drawing attention to the situation, but that isn't welcome because he comes from the wrong side of the aisle?
I'm sure Cornyn is using this for political gain. Of course he is. But if you think there is anyone in Washington who isn't motivated by political gain then your being very naive.
Try imagining GP comment as being directed towards those who believe that someone who agrees with you on a few issues is your eternal faithful ally and someone who disagrees with you on a few issues is a partisan demagogue who will oppose you at every turn. There appear to be many such people commenting on HN stories related to this series of events.
True, but so what? Isn't the point of having an adversarial political system that when one side fucks up, the other will call them on it? Even if they're being giant hypocrites in the process?
No, the intent was so that both sides were too busy fighting each other to the point that they could never take control of the country to establish and dictatorship :p.
And with that perspective in mind, I can confidently assert that the constitution has been a wild success.
Our political system was built such that the venal interests of politicians would motivate them to check a) over-reaches of the other branches of government and b) the excesses of the other party.
It would be nice if progressives were up-in-arms about overreach in the Justice Department of a Democratic president, but it's not to be expected. Even if it's just republican point scoring, it's still someone holding the Justice department to account.
Both parties make hay with the DOJ when they are in opposition.
The Democrats with the firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush administration. Before that it was the Republicans over Elián González in the Clinton Administration.
Does it matter? Your point of view seems to be that unless a politician shares your every point of view then you can't agree with them on any issue. Seems like a good way to never accomplish anything.
> what do you honestly think Aaron Swartz would think about this clown using his name to score political points?
I'm not sure I understand why the "clown" scoring political points is so bad. Where in the rulebook does it state that doing the right thing must be completely devoid of agenda or beneficial byproducts?
Take, for example, volunteering. There are many who "volunteer" because they have to - whether it be for school, punishment, whatever. Do you think the volunteer organizations care why the volunteers are there as long as they work and do their jobs? No. They're just happy they've got people to help.
I think the same thing applies here. I never met Aaron nor do I know how he would react, but I know many folks who care deeply about this issue. They really only care that someone is asking the pointed questions and holding the DoJ accountable. They don't much care who it is or why he's doing it. If the end result is the same, what does it matter anyways?
> Where in the rulebook does it state that doing the right
> thing must be completely devoid of agenda or beneficial
> byproducts?
When every policy he supports is, both in effect and in spirit, nearly diametrically opposed to the beliefs of the dead person whose name he's using to score political points?
Good lord, you don't have to agree with Aaron's left-wing politics to be concerned about federal abuse of power. Seeing justice done isn't a partisan issue.
> I just think you should appreciate them ruefully.
This is a perfect description. I agree completely with the "ruefully" portion. I will still support his quest to raise trouble at the DoJ, but I do not support many of the other things for which he stands.
"This is the same hyperpartisan Senator who was at the forefront of the effort to deny habeas rights to Guantanamo inmates; he was also involved in the Bush wiretapping scandal."
So what? Does it mean that he is "wrong" about everything else?
Your views are consistent with a paid or otherwise incentivized "shill" with vested interests in taking the opposite view of any positive legislative action regarding the Swartz case. You knocked the earlier legislative proposal, now you are knocking this.
Regardless of eventual outcome, I think it's probably safe to say that Ortiz's post-Justice department political career is probably done.
I don't see how she could win a democratic primary in Massachusetts anymore--too many other ambitious Dems who'd have field day with this, and Republican opposition will keep her from being appointed to anything requiring confirmation.
It's a lot less than she deserves, but there's some gratification in the thought that the over-aggressive prosecution which was most likely designed to advance her political career will prevent it.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. Try reading the comments on any Boston globe article about this affair. Ortiz has strong support from law-and-order voters and many people in Massachusetts outside of tech; in addition to Swartz, she's been very aggressive in her prosecution of corruption and misconduct in the state government. She has a compelling back story and (at least before this) was blessed by Deval Patrick.
I think she could definitely replace Martha Coakley as state Attorney General, at minimum (Coakley also did many odious things as a prosecutor and has never, to my knowledge, paid a political price for it). And a decade from now, long after Aaron has disappeared from the press cycle, she'll make a run for Senate or Governor and his prosecution will likely be nothing more than a subsection of her Wikipedia bio. These are the sad realities of politics in Massachusetts.
That's certainly possible, but given that Massachusetts has a pretty deep bench of ambitious democrats, it's hard not to see how this is anything but a handicap.
There's something to the law-and-order point, but that would be more true in a general election, which I don't see her reaching.
Alternatively, not all voters are one issue voters. If she has done amazing things in the state and misguidedly pressed hard on Aaron, perhaps she should be judged by her whole record.
Given, I don't know much about it so I could be completely off base, but there is more to Ortiz's career than one case that was extremely misguided and ended horrifically.
"Finally, the U.S. Attorney has blamed the “severe punishments authorized by Congress” for the apparent harshness of the charges Mr. Swartz faced. Does the Department of Justice give U.S. Attorneys discretion to charge defendants (or not charge them) with crimes consistent with their view of the gravity of the wrongdoing in a specific case?"
Interesting game of "hot potato" going on. Nonetheless, I applaud Sen. Cornyn for asking these questions.
I don't care if this is blatant pandering or not; At least he's asking some of the tough questions. It's good to see someone other than Lessig saying "I'm not sure this was appropriate"
The good news is that some good questions have been asked, and the reply will be available for scrutiny.
I'm not sure Cornyn was the best member of Congress to write this sort of letter. Yes, he is on the Committee of the Judiciary, but his political leanings might result in posturing that obfuscates the issues we care about. That being said, I'm glad someone asked.
Perhaps, but this letter was focused and, on the whole, loaded with serious and important questions. It looks like his political posturing on this one is going to be aligned with our politics.
Just keep telling yourself that politics is a branch of biology, not of physics. It's messy, unclear, somewhat random and does not operate by simply observable rational rules.
It's worth noting that Cornyn, though not an official PIPA co-sponsor, wasn't someone who was much against it either (until after the blackout)
http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/C001056
Puppets, strings, now it's calling for it's right of FOIA ? Can't they just recognize they should not have the right to mess with individuals, specially if no harm is done.
These prosecutors jobs is a dream job for psycopaths, jack the ripper would exceed in a job like this.
I would like them to question her why after 2 yrs of holding this over Aaron's head, depleting his finances, that they didn't think a plea deal for a misdemeanor instead of felony counts would be sufficient deterrent? When I read below Fri. Jan18th, I was incensed even more at how they treated Aaron:
"Last Friday, on the same day that Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment, prosecutors from Ortiz’s office stood in a Boston courtroom and allowed a former state representative named Stephen “Stat” Smith to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for rigging absentee ballots in three elections. Swartz’s lawyers asked for the same consideration, that Swartz be allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Prosecutors refused.
So, given that Ortiz will not explain herself, we’ll just have to presume she believes that illegally manipulating the outcome of elections, which are the essence of our democracy, is less serious an offense than downloading an online archive of obscure academic articles." (Excerpt fm article by Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe). http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/18/taking-heat/L1rfSF47...
There is nothing new about this behavior, Len Rose went through much the same 20 years ago. Maybe we are finally getting a clue that the system is, in fact, broken.
Regardless of where you stand on Cornyn's politics, it's important that someone with authority is trying to find answers to this situation in a public forum.
Expect to see lots of superficial genuflection from Republicans towards the Swartz case; the GOP is in a constant low-grade conflict with the Democratic DoJ.
Here, let me put it this way: what do you honestly think Aaron Swartz would think about this clown using his name to score political points?